LONELY PLANET'S OFFICIAL GUIDEBOOK INFORMATION
Top Fives
Untitled Document
Our Favourite Festivals
Virtually every week of the calendar there’s a festival somewhere in Sri Lanka. The following list is our pick of the ones worth seeking out:
Navam Perahera, Colombo, February
Vesak Poya, throughout Sri Lanka, May
Kandy Esala Perahera, Kandy, July/August
Kataragama, Kataragama, July/August
Vel, Colombo and Jaffna, July/August
Best National Parks
With over a dozen national parks and forest reserves in Sri Lanka, you could spend months exploring them all. To help you prioritise, here’s our list of favourites based on accessibility, scenic beauty and presence of wildlife.
Yala National Park
Uda Walawe National Park
Minneriya National Park
Sinharaja Forest Reserve
Wilpattu National Park
Lie-Back-&-Relax Beaches
Sri Lanka’s east, south and lower west coasts are lined with bays, coves and beaches. Most structures along these coastlines experienced at least some damage during the 2004 tsunami, and many buildings were completely destroyed. The beaches themselves suffered least of all, although some are still being cleaned of rubble. Here are our favourite sand-and-sea getaways.
Kalkudah Bay Beach
Nilaveli
Unawatuna
Mirissa
Induruwa
Hill Country Scenery
Sri Lanka’s Hill Country covers a huge chunk of the island and almost all of it could be classed as ‘scenic’. For truly dramatic views, however, these are the top five.
Adam’s Peak
Ella
Horton Plains National Park
Knuckles Range
Haputale
Lonely Planet recommends World Nomads Travel insurance
